Gone to the Hills
by freelancejouster
Summary: Hermione is sent to the United States to help erect a new school and finds out something unusual about the surrounding area


**I've had this idea for quite some time, to take something I'd already written and import characters from my favorite story. This is probably a one shot, but if people like it, I might continue the story.**

**I do not claim any ownership of the Harry Potter universe and write about them merely because I think they're wonderful. **

**Without further ado, "Gone to the Hills"**

* * *

_"Mmm mm, _he never told me 'bout no... what _did_ you say he call' them boys?"

"Wizards, he called them; he called them 'wizards,'" Hermione's well spoken dialect sounded strange to her ears in this surrounding. She didn't fit here, she never would. In this ramshackle hut with an aging woman who was perpetually stooped next to a ill-mannered flame, she didn't belong here.

"Oh, now, they weren't no wizards happenin', not 'round here y'see. na'm, we's a good group of scurd farmers, livin' off the land and lovin' off eachother... and the lord, a'course, we love us the lord somp'in fierce.

"Wizards, ha, to hear you speak, you'd think that we're devil worshippers... we never did even think of bowing down to the great red one. Too much fire in him, y'see, and it's warm enough in here a'ready. Don't need him stirring us up none."

She chuckled, smiling good-naturedly. Her face was thick with lines, fat and homely and loved by her entire clan of family members that would swarm around her during the holidays most years. This Thanksgiving, though, there was no one to surround her and her hovel, small as it was, seemed empty. The ministry had sent Hermione here to visit this... interesting muggle woman in the south-eastern bit of the United States to see if she knew something that she shouldn't. To see if the woman had seen the school they were in the process of erecting just less than a mile away.

"O-kay," Hermione knew that she sounded uncaring. She was sent for the woman's story, though. "So, are you still in contact with Robert?"

The woman's son, Robert Mullins, was, quite frankly, the most arrogant and boring wizard whom Hermione had had the unfortuance of meeting while in the United States. His drawl did nothing to wake her up, and while she was usually interested in any information she could get hold of, Robert's stories of his childhood were deeply uninteresting. However, He spoke of his mother in reverence and so Hermione had been sent, wand in hand, to make sure the old muggle knew nothing of the magical community.

"Bobby who, darlin'? I should tell you right now, my mem'ry innit what it should be, but I do 'mem'er a right dozen Bobbys runnin' around here... back when there were chil'en doin' some runnin'... we haven't but a few of 'em now-a days."

"Your son, Ma'am; your son, Bobby."

"Ah, mah boy... he was the most darlin' boy you ever did see. He would run around here with not but a _stitch_ of clothin' on, an' he wouldn't care none, just felt more comf'erble that way, i reckon. Wouldn't _stand_ for no one tellin' him what he _ought_ta be wearin', cryin' that he could wear whatever he din't wantta whenever he damn well pleased, _mmm_ mm, that boy was a nuisance an' that was when he was just a li'l boy, five or six, I reckon, an' did I ever tell you about the time I found him up on that _roof_, I found him there, an' he were so stuck an' I telled him that he weren't allowed up there, never, an' a how come he was up there now? An' he was just so _smug_ so i telled him that he could just stay up there an' i wouldn't-"

Hermione cut her off mid-ramble, "Mrs. Mullins."

"Yes'm?"

Her big, brown, animal-like eyes were trained, startled and alert on Hermione. For a moment, Hermione wanted to hug the woman and pat her consolingly. Illiterate and aging, caught between three words: the past world of family and home and squalor, the present muggle world of technology and speed, and the magical world which took her son.

"Do you still speak to your son Bobby?"

"I seen him some years back an' he weren't... he weren't nothin' like he shoulda been no more... he hold a stick tha' burnt red an'... I tol' him I din't want him 'round here no more if he were gonna be like that..."

"Have you spoken to him this year?"

She hesitated.

"...I don't wanna say nothin' more."

"I need your help, Mrs. Mullins. I need you to help me, here. If you could just tell me when you last spoke with him...What he told you of where he'd been?"

She stood up, offense leaking from every part of her large figure. She was going to run or storm away in a huff and Hermione would lose everything. She would lose the trust it had taken her so long to scrape together, "I _don't _wanna say no more!"

"Mrs. Mullins. He'll visit you if you help us." And every drop of anger drained out of her and she collapsed back into her chair. She sat there with the air drained out of her for an immeasurable moment but Hermione didn't dare break the silence before she did. Something Robert had told her had obviously frightened her and just before Hermione raised her wand to wipe the woman's memory of the event, Mrs. Mullins spoke again.

"I did a good job a raisin' him, I did. It weren't mah fault that he done screwed up his life like this. When he came here last, it weren't him no more... him was pushin' me around and he hadn't never talk to his momma like that before, but... here he was and he..." Hermione could scarcely understand the woman anymore. Her words had become garbled and tears streaked down her dirty face, "he said he was goin' to the hills and that he migh' not come back... I tol' him that no one comes back, but he... he weren't in much of a listen'in mood, y'see."

"What are the hills, Mrs. Mullins?" Where the school was being built? Had he told her of that? Or had we stumbled upon something much more sinister?

"_He_ lives there."

"Who? Who lives there?" Hermione's heart thudded hard in her chest.

Mrs. Mullins answered by shaking her head fiercely, "He ain't never comin' back."

And that was the last she spoke.


End file.
